An oversubscribed Jewish school in north London, JFS, once called the Jewish Free School, has been found to be breaking race laws. A 12-year-old boy, known as M, was not let in because, although his mother converted to Judaism, she did so at a progressive rather than an orthodox synagogue, which did not meet their criteria. Now the Court of Appeal has found this to be a "test of ethnicity that contravenes the Race Relations Act", comparing it with a practising Christian child not gaining entrance to a faith school because of their Jewish origins. Well, fair enough, but is this story just about one school's rigidity?

I got a brief taste of Jewish segregation when I used to live in Stamford Hill. Some members of the Hasidic community would drag their children away from me on the street or cover their eyes as I went past. In their eyes, I was "unclean" and dressed as a prostitute. In fairness, this was my rock chick heyday and I was definitely working my "Ironic Slut" look.

Moreover, I have general sympathy for Jewish people in this sphere. They already have to put up with Madonna, Esther, as well as Demi, Britney and the rest of the celebrity kabbalah "Mystical Judaism" brigade. With all those red string bracelets wafting around, who could blame the Jewish community for desiring some kind of door policy?

However, this story seems to be less about definitions, rigid or otherwise, of "Jewishness" than it is about education. More precisely, good state schools, in this case, good faith state schools, and the lengths parents are prepared to go to get their children into them.

Indeed, how disingenuous is this "uproar" at schools such as JFS, be they Jewish, Catholic or Protestant, insisting on strict entry criteria? Are parents really shuffling their feet, denying the existence of what could only be termed the "Good School God Scam"?

I am not remotely suggesting that this is what happened in the case of boy M. However, every parent knows about the God Scam. It's that thing where people, who never seemed interested before, suddenly "get religion", turning up the volume on their Catholicism, Protestantism or whatever, when there just happens to be a really great state, and otherwise inaccessible, faith school, just down the road.

It is almost a cliche, bumping into previously quasi-heathen parents, suddenly taking their child to church every Sunday. Some of them seem genuine. Others mumble furtively about "being attracted to the sense of community". Then there are those who are completely brazen about going through the motions purely to get their child into the good school or, as one parent put it: "You need a letter saying you're a regular."

Curiously, even those prone to fulminating at length about the immorality of private schooling tended to find nothing wrong in posing as believers. Was I startled by such hypocrisy? Saddened? Contemptuous? In retrospect, I should have been. In reality, I just wished I'd got my own "Godly" act together. Does this mean that people like me are capable of disgraceful, manipulative, mendacious acts in order to secure their child's education? Oh sure. No biggie. We are parents after all.

This is the point. I'm in no position to judge parents who try to pull a religious "fast one". If I'd been organised, I may have tried the same myself. That said, I do retain a modicum of sympathy for families, and indeed schools, who truly are religious. Catholics, Protestants, Jewish people, whoever, who find their faith invaded by people like me - opportunistic "converts" with designs on a decent free education.

Indeed, while the situation with JFS seems to have a far more complex subtext, where the regular God Scam is concerned it just boils down yet again to plain old parent fear. As in, what we'll do for our children when we feel our backs are against the wall. As I said, you'll find no judgment here. Just don't pretend you have no earthly or, indeed, ecclesiastical sense of what I am talking about.

Oh please stop getting so hung up over the mobile phones for tots

Everyone seems outraged about the Firefly mobile phone aimed at four-year-olds, with special buttons for Mum and Dad. On taste levels, it is rather grim, up there with those adorable high heels for babies we saw a while ago. However, any other kind of outcry is ridiculous.

Face it, for some reason, children enjoy emulating the drudgery of adulthood, Beats me why - plenty of adults would rather give it a miss - but kids are straight in there with their mini-me posturing. Thus, many toys are fashioned along those lines, and if you're fine with the idea of working toy ironing boards, cookers or computers, what is uniquely appalling about a mobile phone?

Nor is the concept new. Parents who buy children's comics will know that, for years now, the free gift on the front is frequently some kind of toy mobile, which doesn't work, but the principle remains the same. One could even argue that the Firefly could serve as a tracking device should a child become lost or abducted.

That's why, while I won't be buying a Firefly (at £60, they must think the parents have a mental age of four), it's not because I'm making a stand against (drum roll) the annihilation of childhood. If you're going to complain about the Firefly, you're going to have to complain about all children's gadgets mimicking adult life. Despite what people say, the Firefly is not a child-rearing low, it's merely a continuum.

He rose from the Glastonbury mud, begging me for help ...

All well at Glastonbury? Or has a generation of pampered yoof perished in a landslide of cow dung, jester's hats and Portaloos?

I was rather looking forward to laying into Glastonbury, and general festival culture, as the most pathetic waste of time ever dreamed up by western humanity. But my heart's not in it, because my former NME colleague, "bonehead", "pinko" punk poet turned scribe and film-maker, Steven "Swells" Wells, has died of cancer.

The last time I saw Swells, years ago, was when he rose up out of the Glastonbury mud, clawing at my wellies, begging me to rescue him from "hippy hell". When I got the news that he'd died, my first feeling was devastation. My second was that they should cancel Glastonbury as a mark of respect. Forever. It's what he would have wanted.

For those who didn't encounter Swells's outpourings on music, politics, sports or, latterly, his illness, you lost out. A tireless wind-up merchant (on my first visit to the NME, he shouted: "Good, we need a goth"), he was inspirational to readers and fellow hacks alike.

It didn't matter whether he loved a band or hated them, he would flick questions at them like lit matches. Each week, Culture Vulture, the column he wrote with David Quantick, would reduce the office to hysterics. Even his writing on his cancer was shot through with his signature brio and rage, as well as pathos.

Sorry, Michael Jackson, but, for me, Swells's was the most significant death last week and it's him to whom Glastonbury artists should be paying tributes. Not that I'm anti-Jacko or that everything must boil down to mainstream versus counterculture. It's just that Jackson's death seems a cultural shock rather than an emotional one; in any real sense, the poor soul "died" years ago.

As for Swells, that night I did rescue him, taking him to my hotel, where we sprawled, still in wellies, drinking and cursing "pointless hippies" until dawn. I cherish that memory now, in a way that I will never cherish the vision of the giant King of Pop sailing pompously down the Thames in 1995. Respect to the family; Swells, RIP.

• This week, there will be a film screened in Parliament about lap dancing by the Object anti-sexual objectification group, arguing that lap dancing is not benign, can cause real suffering to women and radical changes are needed throughout the industry. All very laudable. Just slightly amused by the thought of droves of "concerned" male MPs turning up to watch the film, in order to agree too.